Explaining contemporary support for the populist radical right in Southern Europe

The populist radical right is (likely) a permanent and certainly pervasive phenomenon across Europe. This now includes all of Southern Europe, which is the home of interesting patterns of variation. For a long time, the populist radical right has only been mildly successful across Spain and Portugal (if at all), whereas it has been exceptional and unique in Italy. Today, the emergence, rise and consolidation of the populist radical right across these three countries is undeniable. Yet, while electoral success of the populist radical right in these countries has triggered considerable scholarly attention to the parties, we remain less knowledgeable about their supporters – especially in Portugal. With that in mind, this study tackles the overarching question “who supports these parties”, while more specifically exploring a key aspect uniting democracies in Southern Europe, namely the role of deprivation toward the authoritarian past. To do so, we rely on unique survey evidence from all three countries and construct an innovate measurement of what we term “authoritarian nostalgia”. Understanding the role of this latter construct will allow us shed further light on whether maintaining links with an authoritarian past can be beneficial for a (populist radical right) party.